Every year by about this time, with the release of the first beta, most Ubuntu commentators have already filed their final story on Ubuntu x.10 for the desktop ? well in advance of the final release in October.

This time around, with the upcoming release of Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) for the desktop, the mediasphere is surprisingly quiet on the subject, and there's not much news coming out of Canonical. Mark Shuttleworth's recent blog posts, are all about the cloud friendliness of Canonical's products, and so far have nothing to say about the new desktop release. Jono Bacon's blog, usually a helpful information source, no longer applies, since Bacon left Canonical and his post as Ubuntu community manager at the end of May to become Senior Director of Community at XPRIZE. Until a replacement for Bacon is announced, the four-person Ubuntu community team will bridge the gap.

Like the rest of the industry, Canonical seems to be focusing the majority of its development resources on smartphones and tablets, with the desktop version of Ubuntu now taking something of a back seat.

 Ubuntu 14.10 (Utopic Unicorn) Beta 1 Preview